Beyond Like and As in Images:
Metonymy and Metaphor in Some Recent Art
We can observe this principle in attending to the work of Anselm Kiefer. His painting Wege der Weltweisheit or Ways of Worldly Wisdom from 1977, as well as many others, clearly makes use of the substitution of a part to represent the whole — the whole in this case being an abstract concept to which these individuals have contributed. In this large oil, acrylic and shellac painting on burlap Kiefer represents the ideas of “worldly wisdom” by delineating men’s heads, mostly those of philosophers.
This work is of course quite complex, dealing with many post-modern issues, intertextuality, the burden of being a German, and more. Without minimizing the importance of the sophistication of the work on many levels, including Kiefer’s play with a Baudrillard-like idea of representation, we posit that the sheer power here comes from his choice of images from an axis of contiguity from his ideas: metonymy. The concerns of eighteen philosophers, as reflected in their writings, are a part of what makes up “worldly wisdom.” The straw affixed to the surface of the canvas by being embedded in the tortured scumbled paint in Nuernberg, 1982, is a further instance of Kiefer’s masterful use of metonymy. Straw, dry grass, is one of the physical elements that are present in a “scorched-earth” landscape. This single substance is once again a case of a part representing the whole. The whole here is the dried-out, stricken, destroyed European plains that were the result of the war-centered policies of National Socialism. This feature of Kiefer’s work effectively separates him from the world view of Modernism, and thereby “actual” Expressionism. It also enables him to challenge the Romantic metaphoric strategies of Modernism, and by extension (Nazi-) Germany.
Conversely, we can look at the paintings of a sometimes superficially similar artist, Julian Schnabel. Schnabel’s work seldom, if ever, makes use of any form of metonymy, while often calling out for the viewer to use conventional metaphoric interpretation to explain its plethora of plates, antlers, appropriated Renaissance figures and the like. The works, however, never actually yield to a metaphoric reading, for they only mimic the density and texture of earlier art.
Schnabel’s paintings are simply expressions of the desire to paint great paintings. This “simply” is not necessarily a “merely,” however, and should not always be as denigrated as it has been recently. Some outstanding artists of the past have had works, or entire corpuses with this ambition; Willem de Kooning, Michelangelo, Jackson Pollock, and Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward Angel come quickly to mind.
However, Schnabel’s images, no matter how much they try to be about, are not. They imitate metaphoric aboutness. If the tendency for such ostentatious analogy becomes the rule, similarity degrades to dead metaphor. The plate chips are similar to large gestural brushstrokes, and simultaneously similar to mosaic — both readings cry for appraisal as “epic.” The broken crockery in The Sea from 1981 substitutes for thick impasto, which in itself is a traditional metaphoric substitution in kitsch painting for the froth on the crests of waves. The figures in his works are so similar to those in great art as to be borrowed from the same. The young boy centered in Stella and the Wooden Bird of 1986 seems to be derived from an Italian or Italianate painting of the past, although (post-) modernized through purposefully clumsy paint handling. Which work exactly? Do we know? Does it matter? In fact it does not, for the figure is no bearer of meaning. Any other figure from practically any other historic painting could be similarly stolen and would work as well, or as poorly, in its place. The nod toward the historically proven “great” is where Schnabel’s interest lies.
The point is that the weakness of much of Schnabel’s art, especially when compared to that of Kiefer, is its naive and tiresome mirroring of the structure of metaphor. The works never delve into metonymy, and ultimately do not supply much of anything even in the metaphoric mode.
The substitution of one stage of a process or procedure for another is a further fundamental mode of metonymy. To call forth again a simple illustration in language, this mechanism could entail the replacement of “publishing” for “writing” or “filming” for “directing.”
The idea of process can be construed in many ways, even that of history itself as artist Marcel Broodthaers has done. While metonymy can clearly be seen in all of Broodthaers best works, one of the purist instances is his imitation of flowery, old-fashioned calligraphy in most of his pieces containing language. Lampe bleue et chaise from 1969, a simple assisted-readymade arrangement of folding chair and spotlight, is an example of this. On the inside surface of the lamp’s reflector Broodthaers scattered lowercase alphabet letters in beautifully painted flowing blue script and installed a blue light bulb. Each crystal-clear bottle of the 1974 multiple Le manuscript dans une bouteille has elegant, curvilinear, etched font stating solely The Manuscript 1833. But perhaps most extravagant is the artist’s Pour un haut devenir du comportement artistique. This plaster, eggshell, paper and wood relief of 1964 features two centered book-page-like paper rectangles. The eggshells on the sheet to the left mimic the fragility of the lettering on the one to right. The words are those of the title, so unbelievably over-flourished in an intertwining, ornamented penmanship that they are neigh-impossible to read, cloyingly antiquarian on purpose.
Radical experimenting with type led through Dada and the Bauhaus to modern design. The drastic asymmetry and frenzied admixture of type faces and even languages which occurred in the pages of the Dada publication 291 or Francis Picabia’s own 391 are the consummate examples, and forefathers, of these new forms. This development for Broodthaers is significant and consequential. Fortunately history in Broodthaers’s view is neither opaque as in modernism nor a shopping mall of ideas to appropriate as in post-modernism. Rather, Broodthaers perceives it as a temporal path of relationships, from which he ingeniously chooses a form contiguous with yet opposite to experimental type. He thereby reinforces the originality of the experimenters, while framing their achievement in time.
An opposing situation is present in the art of Ashley Bickerton. By far the weakest aspect of Bickerton’s works is the element of script he often introduces. Bickerton uses corporate logos, or the like, scattered across the surface of his paintings. Hence, he is following the typical line of substitution through similarity, by deriving a style from found Pop sources. In many of his works, but emphatically in his 1988 Wall Wall No. 9 (The Gigantic Silence) for Kiani, the artist’s signature is applied vertically on the left and the right in an angular, stylized script, befitting a perfume or cosmetic designer with modernist aspirations. The more or less “international” symbols of Good Painting No. 2, again from 1988, include the UN symbol, the peace sign, a dolphin, palm trees, and the US presidential seal. The actual trademarked logos of Tormented Self-Portrait (Susie at Arles), a painting with black, padded leather additions, include Fruit of the Loom, Marlboro, Village Voice, CalArts and many others, as well as his own personal logo formed from stylizing the name “Susie.”